Top 50 Songs Of 2006 and the WYDU Panties Award Part Deux

by Travis on January 5, 2007

As the year get’s ramped up and 2007 gets going (and we have to wait for the dreadfully boring Jan-Mar months to pass), we here at WYDU are taking time to reflect back on the past year. The happy times, the good times, the times of overpriced hookers and cheap drugs.

I still don’t completely understand why everyone was hyping this year up like it was something special. Yes, there was some decent stuff, but few albums made me listen to them past a couple of weeks. Even the songs that came out this year were just on the so-so page. Rating songs these days has become next to impossible. Back in the day, you knew exactly what song on an album was a single and there might be 2-4 singles on an album. All you had to do was watch any video outlet and you knew exactly what tracks were out. Hell, these days you get 2 singles coming out at the same time. You have the street single, the somewhat single, the radio single, the club single, the old persons single, the thug single. It’s fucking rediculous. I don’t even pay attention to the almighty single anymore, which is very unfortunate.

Singles in the days were beautiful things. I bought more maxi singles than I did albums in the late 80′s/early 90′s. There was always some kind of bonus remix(es) or unreleased B-side (see; “Hard Like A Criminal” as the B-Side from “Straight From The Sewer”, or almost any single from the “Enta The Stage Album”). They made you want to go get them. I guess you can just chalk the death of the maxi single as another internet fatality.

We’ll cover the last 50 that I (MEANING ME) personally liked. I’m not saying these are the best, these were just the ones that I played the most this year.****THESE ARE DOWNLOADABLE LINKS*******

The First Anual WYDU Panty Awards for 2006: These were voted on by all the contributors, so not just my own personal views (Polarity had a hand in writing some of these as well)

The WYDU ‘Vanilla Flavored Panties Award’ for blandest album of the year:Nicolay “Here” – After scooping props for his collaboration album with Phonte of Little Brother (a
s Foreign Exchange) in 2004, Dutch producer Nicolay came back in 2006 with an instantly forgettable solo album. Apart from a couple decent songs, the majority of this short album consisted of innocuous r&b fluff. I don’t have anything against r&b if it’s done well, but most of this shnit had less flavor than Starbucks coffee.

The Nun Wearing Crotchless Panties Award (Most Ironic Song Title of the Year): “Hip Hop is Dead” by Nas (produced by Will.I.Am!) – Okay, the song itself wasn’t too bad (even if it recycled “Thiefs Theme” more than a little bit) but the mere presence of Will.I.Am (founding member of the most insidious outfit in modern hip hop) on this track manages to finally claw this award away from the long-time title holder Craig Mack’s “Making Moves With Puff”.

Hot M.I.L.F in a Thong Award (Least Embarassing Comeback Album):Juggaknots “Use Your Confusion” – Some questionable production choices stopped this record from being as good as it should have been, but Breezly Brewin is still one of the most interesting lyricists around and his sister Queen Herawin is kinda dope too. Hopefully we don’t have to wait another ten years for another instalment. Honorable Mention: Black Sheep -”8mw Novakane” & Camp Lo – “Fort Apache”

The Fat Chick In A Thong Award (Most Embarassing Comeback Album): Mobb Deep “Blood Money” – News of QB stalwarts Havoc & Prodigy signing with 50 Cents money making emporium raised more than a few eyebrows. The resultant album “Blood Money” was a trainwreck – too many 50 Cent appearances, too many recycled beats, and it’s getting harder and harder to ignore the fact that Prodigy really doesn’t sound like he wants to rap any more. Not only that, but the album went wood. Here’s hoping that a similar fate is not in store for MOP.

The Hot Chick Wearing Granny Panties Award (Most Disappointing Album):Nas – “Hip Hop Is Dead” – Yes, it is in the top 20, but with a name like “Hip Hop Is Dead” and all the hype that preceeded the release, this album should have clearly been better than the handful of hot tracks it contained. And why on God’s green earth was all the songs that weren’t on the album (“The N”, “Don’t Body Yourself “, and “It Wasn’t You” come to mind) better than 75% of the stuff that made the album? The fact it was still top 20 just points the medicore year that was 06′. Runner Up: AG – Get Dirty Radio….Everytime I think about this album I falzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz………..have a narolyptic seizure,

The Soiled Panites Award (The Worst Album): Blue Sky Black Death – “The Holocast” - I love declaring the worse album of the year because ultimaley it ends up being someones favorite album (I have seen this on at least one top 10 list this year) and panties get bunched and toes get stepped on . This album reminded me of a bad cartoon voice off of South Park, even the beats couldn’t save it. Honorable Skid Marks go to: Dan The Automater Presents “2K7: The Tracks” & Saafir – “Good Game: The Transition”

The Girl Next Door In a Thong Award (The Suprisingly Good Album ): Busta Rhymes – “The Big Bang” – I hadn’t even paid attention to a Busta album since the late 90′s, yet when I gave this a listen for the first time, I was pleasantly suprised. Sure, there are still a couple syrupy radio jams on this, but all in all it’s a real good album. Busta finally decided to come with something other than some Puffy produced crap. Now if he can just keep off the roids, things might be okay.

The Cute Chick In One Piece Award (Slept On Album ): Obie Trice – “2nd Rounds On Me”. I guess that it’s uncool to like anything related with Eminem lately, but this was a very good. Even I slept on it somewhat. It’s shows a more mature Obie covering many different topics. We are even spared a bunch of monotonous Eminem beats.

The Salma Hayek In A Thong Award (The Best Album of The Year):Ghostface – Fishscale. Based on the popular vote and the scientific “Panty Equation” Ghost wins the covevted “Salma Hayek In A Thong Award” for best album of the year. What else could you want in life?

Polarity’s Recent Favorites

2006 was such a disappointing year in terms of quality full length records that I decided to write a little something on some other recent albums that are well hunting down if you don’t own them already.

Polarity’s Choice:

Maspyke – Static (ABB 2005). The Springfield Mass. Trio of Tableek, H Bomb Boogie and producer Roddie Rod are one of the flyest groups to come out in the past few years. Moving from a failed tenure at Atlantic records to grinding it out on the underground scene, years of putting out tight singles and EP’s culminated in the excellent ‘Static’ album late last year. Roddy Rod is one of the best producers out right now, squeezing high level head-nod from the most unlikely of sources (like samples from cooking shows on ‘Recipe’ for example.) Lyrically, Tableek and especially H Bomb are the first rappers in a long while to have me reaching for the rewind button. Basically the whole package is high on replay value, a value missing from many recent releases and therefore something to be valued highly.

OC – Starchild (Grit, 2005). The reception that met Omar Credle’s 2001 third album Bon Appetit was nothing short of poisonous. The legions of fans O had accumulated on the strength of his two classic (if commercially overlooked) albums Word…Life and Jewelz simply couldn’t comprehend why the true school stalwart would adopt a pseudo-jiggy steez and join the crowd of new millennium ‘players’. I personally liked the album (can’t front on ‘Dr Know’!) but Starchild, was a comeback in all sens
es of the word. Produced mostly by Euro-beatsmiths such as Soul Supreme (who employs the sped-up soul sample shtick better than most), sample clearance complications meant Starchild was only ever officially released in a handful of countries like Japan and Australia. Don’t let the awful cover art put you off, this is well worth searching for. Smoke & Mirrors, also released last year was thematically similar in some ways to Bon Appetit, but definitely had its moments. Produced by Mike Loe (last heard from on Ill Biskits’ unreleased album), Smoke was overlong by about 6 tracks but was still one of the better releases of ’05.

Chris Lowe – The Black Life (Female Fun, 2004) & Dooley O – I Gotcha (Lewis, 2005). For those of you unfamiliar with the story, New Haven CT residents Dooley O and Chris Lowe were responsible for uncovering the classic ‘It’s a New Day’ drum break (or the Skull Snaps break as some people call it) back in 1990, only to have Dooley’s denim-shredding cousin Stezo snatch it up and use it on his ‘It’s My Turn’ joint. Dooley’s own album ‘Watch My Moves’ was shelved and for 15 years Chris and Dooley languished in obscure hip hop lore while the Skull Snaps break they found in a neighbours basement would be endlessly used on hundreds of classic rap tunes (‘Sally Got a One Track Mind’, ‘Who Got The Props’ and ‘Take It Personal’ to name a few).Anyway, after Solid Records finally released Dooley’s fine ‘Watch My Moves’ album in 2003 and the whole story came out, Chris and Dooley seemed to find a new lease on life, each dropping excellent solo albums in 2004 and 2005 respectively. ‘The Black Life’ and ‘I Gotcha’ are similar in that neither pander to obnoxious mainstream tastes, sticking with thick funk samples and clever wordplay. The antithesis of ‘hot shit’, both albums effortlessly capture the flavor of the early 90’s while still managing to remain current.